The chicken community is amazing! My wife and I just made a cross country move (Wisconsin back home to Alabama) and we're living (short term) in a town that doesn't allow chickens. Of course, I went to the city hall and looked up the codes, talked to the planning guy, etc. Seems I can get a $500 fine and 30 days in jail for keeping chickens in town. Crazy.

We kept a flock of about 30 on our farm in Wisconsin and our eggs were prized by many. We never had food scraps to throw away, and the poop made magic happen in the garden. It's a shame that towns don't readily accept small scale chicken ranching.

I tracked down the police sergeant for our neighborhood, and he said, "Go ahead and do it. I'm not gonna be the chicken police."

We're going to do it.

We'll go to the immediate neighbors and ask if they'd mind fresh eggs now and then. We'll ask them for their vegetable scraps for our chickens and our compost and they'll get eggs in return. What a great way to connect a community. Why doesn't every town allow or even encourage home chicken flocks?

Are you familiar with the film 'Mad City Chickens'? My wife and I are featured in the film as the wacky transplants that feed grits to their birds in the depths of the Wisconsin winter. Here's a link to the filmmaker's blog: http://tarazod.com/blog/ They'll be showing the film at the Victoria Film Festival on February 3rd... try to get there if you can.

All About Bob

I’m known as Camp Counselor Bob amongst my inner circle. While, not an accredited counselor, I’m an effective guide in a wide range of activities; fly fishing, backpacking, snowmobiling, oyster tasting and wine tasting. I reside in Seattle, coffee capital of the Universe. I’m originally from Montana but spent my formative years in Puyallup, Washington – a now suburbanized ‘farming town’ south of Seattle. The number one thing I learned growing up near Seattle was that I wanted to live there, not Puyallup. Now there’s nothing wrong with Puyallup, it’s just not that exciting of a place. I am married to Darnell, my wife of 14 years. In our spare time we are lovingly restoring our Ravenna farmhouse back to its original glory. I explain to my wife that we’re taking it back to it’s farm roots with our cat Bozeman, 2 mini Aussies, Lucca (neurotic) & Blu (give me a job, give me a job), and our 3 chickens – B Master B, Lil’B and B Diddy. I get ‘the look’ when I tell her that.